Saturday, April 21, 2012

Yum! Can You Say Grilled Chicken?

     With the weather getting warmer, a lot warmer, I thought we would celebrate Friday night with grilled chicken for dinner.  I found this simple marinade recipe and tried it out.  There does need to be a bit of planning ahead for this recipe.  You need to make sure your chicken breasts are completely thawed out and they need to marinate for a least an hour.  Another great thing about this marinade recipe is that I had almost all the ingredients at home.  All I needed to purchase was a lime :)  Oh, you can find it on allrecipes.com under "Spicy Grilled Chicken."  BTW, it's really not spicy for those of you who don't like things spicy.
     All you need is some veggie oil, a lime, garlic, oregano (fresh is best), red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.  Combine all of those tasty goodies together in a plastic bag, toss in your chicken breasts, move them around a bit and put them in the fridge for an hour and there ya go.
     Now, I'm not the bbq'er in our small family of two.  That's Danny's job :).  But last night he was busy getting a hair cut so I decided to tackle our little Smokey Joe BBQ.  I got the coals going without burning my eyebrows off :).  Came close to it, but they are still in tact.
     Once the chicken has marinated for an hour and your coals are all ready to go, put the chicken on the grill and put the lid on (make sure the vents are open).  I cooked them about 7 minutes on each side.  Keep an eye on them though.  If your coals are pretty hot, it probably will cook faster and dry out.  To check for doneness, I used my meat thermometer but mostly relied on the juices running clear.  I took them off the grill and covered them with foil then placed them in my oven on warm.
     Proceed to making the rest of dinner.
     I found a box of mac and cheese in the pantry and cooked that up.  Spiced it up a bit with added black pepper and some garlic.  Danny loves garlic.  Then made a quick ranch dressing with sour cream, milk, Parmesan cheese, dried dill, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper and we poured that over a salad of fresh baby spinach and a couple of carrots.
     The chicken came out so moist and tender and full of flavor.  And you can never go wrong with mac and cheese, especially if you tweak it up a bit.  Fresh spinach makes a great salad full of nutrients.
     I'm very thankful for everything the Lord has provided for us and the joy I get from cooking!

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